The oldest known Savior icon is this:
: This shows a full and rather thick beard, with characteristic tuft of hair right under the lower lip, giving way to a bear upper half of the chin.
This image, admittedly late-medieval (16c.) shows all elements of Christ's beard that prevail through the ages and, I believe came from eyewitness accounts.
In addition to the bare upper chin on the St. Catherine image, we see long curls and the beard parting in two strands at the bottom.
These elements can be discerned, albeit with some difficulty, on the Shroud of Turin image:
That’s very interesting, thanks! I hadn’t really given it much thought, but the beard placement in the picture in post 11 was eye-catching strange.
“oldest known Savior icon is this”
I’m not sure if you’ve seen what happens when that iconic image is split in half vertically, and mated with its mirror image. The results are quite interesting. I’ve never taught myself how to post images on FR, but here is a link to the image I described:
http://www.barnhardt.biz/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Composite_christ_pantocrator.png